When it was pointed out to Vice President Dick Cheney that two-thirds of Americans believe the war in Iraq isn’t worth it, his response was short, simple and encapsulated anything you’d ever need to know about this administration: “So?”

So, everything, Mr. Vice President. In the Thomas Hardy poem, “The Man He Killed,” the last stanza goes as such:

“Yes; quaint and curious war is! / You shoot a fellow down / you’d treat if met where any bar is, / or help to half-a-crown.”

The poem refers to the dehumanizing nature of war. Two people fighting on opposite sides of a conflict, generally speaking, have much more in common than we would be led to believe. They have friends, and family; they love their homes and their countries. Though an anti-war poem, Hardy spends much of his time describing what good people soldiers are – solid people who are kind to their fellow man. Outside of a wartime setting, there is a lot that opposing soldiers would have to bond over.

This week, a story surfaced that is a telling reminder of this fact. Horst Rippert, 88, was once a German fighter ace during World War II. A Messerschmidt pilot, Rippert had 28 confirmed kills during the conflict. Rippert learned that of those 28 kills, one was French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote, among other things, the delightful novel “The Little Prince.” If you’ve never read it, I recommend it – it won’t take you very long.

Saint-Exupery also was Rippert’s favorite author.

“If I had known it was Saint-Exupery, I would never have shot him down. I loved his books,” Rippert recently told reporters.

“I am shocked and sorry,” he continued. “Who knows what other great books he would have gone on to write?”

Saint-Exupery’s death was not, by any stretch of the imagination, Rippert’s fault. He was a soldier, doing his job. Likewise, Saint-Exupery was a pilot, following orders of his own. The responsibility for this lies much higher up the chain of command, with the people who gave the orders.

But it’s Rippert who gets to bear the guilt for what he was told to do. A chain of command can’t have nightmares or feel remorse or apologize for what it’s done.

The war in Iraq has hit its fifth year, and whether or not you think it is justified, you should keep in mind the toll that we’re exacting. Every person killed over there could be an artist, a writer, a doctor or a singer – someone who could have gone on to enrich the world in a thousand incalculable ways.

The total number of American soldiers killed in Iraq has hit 4,000. Those are men and women who have given all they have to this cause, whatever that cause may be. But they’re not the only people who have given of themselves to this – anyone who’s served in Iraq has been forced to give of themselves.

And 60 years from now, when the rest of us have forgotten and moved on, the ones who we’ve sent will be forced to deal with guilt that should rightly belong to others.

For the next several months, Iraq will get thrown around a lot as a political issue for people to scream and pump fists and toss out catch phrases about.

But war is more than that, and if only on these anniversaries, we should try to remember that.

And so should Cheney.